The Color of Greed (Raja Williams 1) (2 page)

And this morning he knew about something. The signs
had been building inside of him for nearly a day. That’s why he
was awake and alert when the voice began.

“Mr. Williams, my name is Clarice Hope. I need
your help.” The voice sounded sad and desperate, two things
Raja could never resist, especially in a woman. He grabbed the phone.

“Hello. This is Raja Williams. Clarice Hope,
did you say?”

“Yes. I’m calling you at the
recommendation of a mutual friend, Mary Steinberg. I didn’t
know what else to do.”

Raja could feel the agony choking her voice through
the phone. He also knew by the throbbing at his temples that the
storm brewing in his head the last couple days was going to be a
category five hurricane. He put the call on speaker and jumped up,
pushing his wavy chestnut hair back and pulling a pair of jeans over
his satin boxers.

“Yes, I know Mary,” said Raja. Know her.
She was Mary Steinberg, of the Connecticut Steinbergs, whose twin
sons had been kidnapped for ransom in Mexico last year. He had saved
them both and busted up a drug and kidnap ring working both sides of
the southern U.S. border. But that was another case. “Sounds
like you need help, Ms. Hope.”

“Please. Call me Clarice. And it’s Mrs.
Hope
...
or it was.”

“Tell me what happened?” asked Raja. He
could feel the relief wash over Clarice at the prospect of a
sympathetic ear.

Clarice Hope poured out the recent events ending
with, “My husband has been murdered.”

“I’m sorry,” said Raja. There was
not much worse than an unexpected widow, especially if she loved her
husband. Mrs. Hope obviously had.

“The problem is, the police have closed the
case and ruled it natural causes, or, at worst, an accident. My
husband was thirty-two years old and experienced at handling a boat
on the ocean. I know it was murder. And I know why. At least partly.
But, I can’t talk on the phone. I am prepared to pay you well
if you will come out to Los Angeles and help me get justice. I’m
a very wealthy woman, Mr. Williams. Money is no object.”

“You’re right about that,” said
Raja. He didn’t accept pay for his services. He did let clients
cover the job expenses as a matter of exchange, and he did, on
occasion, request a favor of a former client, no questions asked,
which they always willingly did. He called it his pay it forward
program. Raja looked at his watch. It was ten in the morning on the
West Coast.

The woman continued, “Mary assured me of two
things. You are the best at what you do. And, I can trust you. Right
now, I need someone I can trust.”

“I can be there by five o’clock. I’ll
be flying into Long Beach Airport. Meet me in the Legends of Aviation
Restaurant at five thirty. You can buy me dinner.”

“Thank you.”

“I haven’t done anything yet. Hold your
thanks until I’m done.” Raja always solved his cases, but
solution is in the eye of the beholder. There was one thing he had
learned as a private investigator. You can promise a client results,
but not that the results will be what the client wants. Some clients
are unhappy with the truth.

“Okay.”

“I’ll see you at five thirty.”
Raja ended the call. He had a bad feeling about this case. Clarice’s
husband would not be the only one to die. Nevertheless, he called
Mickey, his pilot, at the airport to set his flight plan to LA.

On the way to the Clearwater Airpark where he kept
his private jet, Raja called the one person he needed to. Raja didn’t
have many close friends, either personal or professional. It kept
life a lot simpler. Vinny was the exception on both counts.

“Now what?” asked the familiar voice,
feigning irritation.

“I’m flying to LA to check out a case.”

“Already?”

“Gotta go where the wind takes me, Vinny.”

“I don’t suppose you would take my bet
that there is a female behind this particular wind,” said
Vinny. “I’ll give you great odds.”

“You know I’ve never been a gambling
man. You want to ride along?”

“I’m just beginning to unwind from our
last case. Do you need me now?”

Raja knew Vinny would go if he asked. “No.
But, maybe later. I’ll keep you in the loop. What are you doing
to unwind?”

“You know the old saying, a gentleman doesn’t
kiss and tell.”

“That begs the obvious question.”

“Nonetheless, my lips are sealed.”

“Okay, well, have fun, whatever you are doing.
I’ll call you if I need you.”

“Later.” Vinny and Raja were the kind of
friends who didn’t have to sweat the small details.

After the jet did a rough slingshot takeoff,
necessary due to the short runway length, the flight to LA was smooth
with Mickey piloting Raja’s custom Hawker 1000. The plane had
been retooled for short takeoff and landing and for increased range.
The jet was fast as lightning and, with Mickey flying it, could drop
on a dime. Raja had run across Mickey O’Toole flying guns in to
rebels in the Congo, and assumed he was a gun dealer at the time.
When he found out Mickey only flew small quantities of weapons into
the country as a front for bringing in the desperately needed medical
supplies that were otherwise being blocked by both sides in the civil
war, he hired Mickey as his pilot.

Mickey had a sweet deal, and he knew it. All he had
to do was take care of any upkeep on the multimillion dollar jet and
he could use it for his own rent-a-jet business in between flying
Raja around. The jet touched down in Long Beach at five o’clock
West Coast Time.

“Don’t suppose you want to stick around
for a few days?” asked Raja.

“I do have an Atlanta charter scheduled for
Sunday that I’d like to make, if that’s okay with you,”
said Mickey.

“Sure, go ahead. I have a feeling I am going
to be here for a while. How long is the charter trip?”

“A week. It’s a honeymoon in the
Bahamas.”

“Okay. Better add a case of Dom on me.”

“That’s a lot of champagne.”

“You only get married once, right?”

“We can always hope,” said Mickey.

“Call me when you’re back in
Clearwater.”

“You got it, boss.”

Knowing Mickey, he would probably wolf down some
food while the plane refueled and head right back to the East Coast.
Raja checked his watch, noting he was just in time to meet Clarice
Hope as planned. He headed to the Legends restaurant. It was a nice
little place that had been newly renovated in an Art Deco style, with
murals of classic planes from the early days of aviation. Nothing
fancy, but they served a decent meal and the casual, relaxed
atmosphere would help him get to know his new client. When he entered
he saw a woman sitting at a table. Raja knew Clarice was in her
fifties, but she didn’t look it, at all. She was well-preserved
with attractive curves. Modern science could do wonders these days.

The woman looked around nervously, like she felt out
of place.

“Mrs. Hope?” asked Raja as he
approached. “Clarice?”

“Yes, yes,” she said, looking relieved.
“I wasn’t sure you were coming.”

“I said I would,” said Raja bluntly.

“Of course. Don’t take offense. I mean
nothing by it. It’s just that, well, I have not had much luck
getting any cooperation lately—especially from the police.”
Clarice shook off her troubles for a moment, and looked Raja over.
“You are much better looking than Mary let on.”

Despite her recent loss, Clarice had not lost her
eye for younger men. Raja had done his homework. Thirty years back
Clarice had been a finalist in the Miss Universe contest, where she
had caught her first husband’s lecherous eye. He was thirty
years her senior and not much to look at, but he more than balanced
the marriage equation as the sole heir to the Crayola crayon fortune.
You might not think there was much money in wax crayons, but millions
of kids happily scribbling in their coloring books had made her first
husband’s family uber-wealthy. Clarice had been faithful arm
candy for him for fifteen years until he died. Then the bulk of his
estate fell into her lap. Turn about is fair play, so when she passed
forty, Clarice began a habit of dating young virile men, mostly
athletes or actors.

It wasn’t Raja’s nature to judge. He
said only, “Thank you,” and sat down across from Clarice.
He looked at her expectantly.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve
been so out of sorts since Randy died.”

“I understand. Tell me why you think he was
murdered.” Raja had an unusual manner that combined empathy
with a sometimes withering bluntness. While he had a knack for
putting people at ease, he had little of the social veneer most
people used automatically to grease their relationships. And, he had
no tolerance for small talk of any kind. It was something he had
learned from his Jamaican grandmother. When he was a young boy, she
would listen to him babble and then say, “Sonny, if you have
nothing important to say, your lips should not be moving.” As
an investigator, he had learned that much of what people say does
more to confuse the facts than clarify them. So his curt manner could
sometimes rub someone the wrong way, as well. The maddening part was
that he didn’t seem to care which one he did.

The pleasant smile dropped from Clarice’s
face. “I
know
he was murdered,” she asserted. “As
I told you on the phone, he was healthy as a horse. And his
seamanship was practiced—more than I preferred.” A
pained, sad look gripped her face for a moment and her face turned
red. “He usually didn’t go boating alone. I doubt he went
out alone that day.”

“What was her name?”

“I didn’t begrudge his party friends,
but I didn’t want to know them. You understand?”

Raja understood he hadn’t gotten an answer.
“Do you have a name?”

“No.” Clarice turned a darker shade of
red. Her dalliances with younger men had been the acts of an aging
woman craving validation, devoid of the emotional connection Clarice
actually needed. That is, until she met Randall Hope, a tennis player
twenty years her junior, whose kindness had captured her heart.

Seeing she cared enough to have motive, Raja had to
ask her the obvious. “Clarice, did you kill your husband?”

“No, of course not,” she said without
any lag. “I may be a middle-aged woman, but I’m not a
fool. It wasn’t like that. We understood each other. I loved
Randy and he loved me.”

Raja was satisfied she was sincere. “Okay. The
murder?”

“Randy found out something—something
about some important people.”

“What people?”

“I’m not sure, but it had to do with
business and politics. He said it could ruin a lot of people, and he
even mentioned the governor.”

“Governor Black?”

“Yes.”

“Some personal scandal?”

“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me
what it was, but I know he was scared. He said he was going to talk
to someone he thought could help. And to think I donated to Governor
Black’s campaign.”

“That’s pretty vague, but it does
present a possible motive.” Raja did not sound convinced.

“That’s not all. When I contacted the
coroner’s office to request that they take another look at the
circumstances of his death, I found out his body had already been
released to a funeral home. And he was immediately cremated.”

“Did he want to be cremated?”

“Yes, but that’s beside the point. He
had only told me his wishes. We had talked about documenting his
intent in a will, but we never did. Just the idea of making a will
creeped him out so badly, we dropped the whole thing. No one else
would likely have known, and certainly no one should have authorized
the cremation.”

“Now we have a fact that doesn’t fit. I
think you are right, Clarice. Randy was murdered. I am going to help
you find out how and why.”

Clarice exhaled forcefully. A hint of anger flashed
in her sad eyes. “Good. I want someone to answer for what they
have done.”

Raja waved the waiter over to their table. “Let’s
order some food and we’ll make a plan. I’m famished.”
Raja was pleased to be on another case.

The two ordered dinner and a bottle of wine. Raja
sent a text while they waited for their food. While Clarice sipped a
glass of white Bordeaux, Raja studied her closely. She was actually a
decent sort of person, more innocent than her sophistication would
have you believe. Despite her bluster, she had no idea the size of
the hill they were about to charge up. Raja only hoped he could keep
her out of the line of fire he knew was coming.

They ate in silence. Afterward while they sipped
coffee, Raja said, “I’m going to need some time to dig
around. Is there someplace you can go—someplace outside the
city?”

“Do you think I’m in danger?”

“Probably not, since you are still alive. But,
I do want to keep you safe. Whoever killed your husband may not know
how much he knew or what he told you.”

“Ironically, I was invited to go to the
governor’s private party on Friday night, but I certainly don’t
want to go now. I do have a horse ranch near Santa Barbara. I could
head up there if you think that would be prudent.”

Raja sent another quick text message on his phone.
“Let’s call that Plan B until I find out a little more.
For now, I want you close by. A hotel here in Long Beach, perhaps?”

“Okay. I’ll be at the Marriott. Let me
know what you find out.”

“You’ll be the first to know.”

Chapter Three: The Party

After meeting with the widow, Raja checked into a
small no-name motel near the airport. Then he called home to Florida.

“Okay, Vinny, what do we have?”

“You act like I’ve got nothing better to
do than work on your cases. Did it ever occur to you that I might be
otherwise engaged?” Raja knew that Vinny could not stay away
from a case any more than he could, but he played along.